A remarkable feature in Lord Granville’s character was his power of self-effacement. Of this he gave evidence on two notable occasions. The first was in 1859, when upon the fall of Lord Derby’s Government the Queen, tired of the rivalry between Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, with neither of whom she was in sympathy, sent for him and desired him to form a Government. He and Lord Clarendon were both of opinion that, unless he could secure the adhesion of the two, whose bristles were up at not having been themselves sent for, they would sooner or later make common cause against him, and so as he put it himself in a letter to Lord John Russell, “as soon as I found that I was an obstacle instead of a facility towards the formation of a strong Government, I went to the Queen to ask her to excuse me from the task which she had so unexpectedly and so graciously imposed upon me.” It was unlucky; for the Queen, having sent for Lord Palmerston, Lord John insisted as the price of his co-operation upon having the seals of the Foreign Office, and that was a national misfortune, of which we are at this moment (1915) feeling the full effects.[26] The second occasion occurred twenty-one years later. In 1875, Mr. Gladstone announced his matured determination to resign the leadership of the Liberal Party. He pleaded that he was tired and that after forty-two years of strenuous public life he was entitled to rest from his labours. He hinted that more serious interests must occupy the remainder of his life. He wished Lord Granville to become the leader of the Liberal Party. Lord Granville declined to play the part of Elisha to his Elijah, but, after many discussions, it was agreed that he should lead the party in the Lords, and Lord Hartington should be the chief in the Commons. Lord Granville never for a moment believed that learned theological polemics with cardinals, the making of his soul, or even the ordering of the dispositions for his own funeral, would satisfy the magnificent activities of that titanic brain. Lord Granville was right. He had gauged the situation with unerring instinct. So had Lord Hartington. The latter felt acutely the false position in which he was placed; Mr. Gladstone, although no longer leader, was undoubtedly the most dominant power among the Liberals in the House of Commons, and without a rival when Mr. Disraeli went to the Lords; consistency had never been one of his merits, and, as a free lance, he could not but be a thorn in his nominal leader’s side. His support could never be looked upon as a certainty; at any moment he might be a hindrance, indirectly in all probability for the most part, but perhaps on occasions, as actually happened on Sir Wilfrid Lawson’s amendment to the proposal to call out the reserves in the Turkish crisis of 1877, an active opponent, voting against his leader. It is true that he afterwards “trounced” that extraordinary crank, Sir Wilfrid Lawson,[27] but the mischief was done.